Friday, January 22, 2016

Bernie Sanders: Unelectable Bolshevik! Or Is He?

On the rare occasions when he's mentioned at all in the corporate press, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is ubiquitously marginalized, treated as a crank, someone whose views mean he couldn't possibly draw enough support to win. Overtly right-wing sources call him an "extremist," a "radical," of the "far left" and relentlessly redbait him. As Sanders' Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton loses ground to the Vermont Senator, she and her surrogates have taken to echoing these attacks, raising the specter of Sanders as an unelectable Bolshevik, a fringe nut advocating "a lot of wackadoodle ideas."

But while political attacks are par for the course in a presidential campaign, these in particular manage to beg some questions already frequently begged by that press coverage, not only of Sanders but of American politics in general. While no one would deny Bernie Sanders is a man of the left, are his views particularly radical? A radical, by definition, significantly departs from the broad political center. So what--or, more particularly, where--is the broad political center in the U.S.? As the good people over at Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting have documented for decades, the corporate press persistently defines "the center" as way, way to the right of the public. "The center" isn't some political party or movement with some manifesto one can consult but neither is it some amorphous concept. America is subjected to a great deal of opinion polling. Discovering the extent of Sanders' deviation from the political center is simply a matter of some research.

This seemed to us a worthy project, to take Sanders' views on his major issues and compare them to the views of the larger public. Are the positions he takes so out-of-the-mainstream as to justify all this hair-pulling and jumping about? Are they so unpalatable to the public as to render him unelectable?

We weren't the first to contemplate an article of this sort. As noted on this blog, Josh Harkinson, writing in Mother Jones last May, put together a presentation on the theme but it was fairly brief and superficial. In June, Philip Bump, writing in the Washington Post, followed suit but while he concluded "Americans broadly support the things that are on Sanders's agenda, with a number of particular footnotes," his survey too was rather superficial (and the web version feature some of the least accurate graphics you'll see anywhere outside Fox News).

For our own presentation, we've undertaken a much broader canvas of the available polling data, probably the broadest by anyone to date. For Sanders' views, we've used the text of his announcement that he was entering the presidential contest, supplemented at various points by related items from Sanders' official site and FeelTheBern.org. Unless we overlooked any, we've checked every view Sanders offered in that speech for which usable polling exists.

That's also the first caveat to what we've done. Because Sanders is a lefty and so often addresses issues left behind by the mainstream corporate press, there's often a dearth of polling on those matters. On others, the existing polling is hopelessly inadequate, corrupted by poorly-formed questions, questions built around temporary political events long since passed and so on. The pollsters cited have earned varied reputations--it's doubtful all the polling work is as good as the best of the batch. The pollsters use different samples--adults, registered voters, likely voters, etc.--and this yields varied results (though usually not widely varied). They use different wording, which will also produced varied results.[1] All of the polling is from the last few years; we've tried to get the most recent data possible but on some issues, we had to take what we could get.[2] Sometimes a single poll will appear more than once, as it featured questions relevant to more than one issue we were examining. We weeded out a lot of redundant polling--if it showed essentially the same result as a poll we'd already found but was taken two months earlier, we didn't bother with it (with one exception, which is explained where it occurs). Being political junkies, we knew beforehand how a lot of the polling would fall but we haven't in any way cherry-picked the polling data to produce predetermined results. The data we haven't used--or at least the data we found but didn't use--looks pretty much like what we did use. There will probably be some exceptions we didn't uncover. There probably won't be many though.

We anticipate a charge of cherry-picking because, though those earlier articles in Mother Jones and the Washington Post were imperfect,[3] we found their overall conclusions were essentially correct; there is widespread public support for Sanders' proposals. Sometimes overwhelming support, sometimes thinner majority support, sometimes a mixed bag wherein Sanders' view is that of a substantial minority. In many cases, even a majority of Republicans support Sanders' position. In no case was Sanders' view radically out of the mainstream of public opinion.[4] These conclusions not only bear on the immediate matter of the political attacks on Sanders for his allegedly "radical" views and how those attacks should be covered, they also present a roadmap of the genuine political center in the U.S. and suggest a, yes, radical reevaluation by much of the corporate press of how it tends to define that center is not only appropriate but long overdue.

Some notes: Sanders quotes are in italicized bold print and, except where otherwise noted, are from his speech. With a few exceptions in which we reorganized some things in the name of simplification, they occur in the same order as they do in the speech.

"The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of
our time, it is the great economic issue of our time and it is the
great political issue of our time. And we will address it... This grotesque level of
inequality is immoral. It is bad economics. It is unsustainable. This
type of rigged economy is not what America is supposed to be about. This
has got to change and, as your president, together we will change it... We need a tax system which is fair and progressive, which makes wealthy
individuals and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of
taxes."

"American democracy is not about billionaires being able to buy
candidates and elections. It is not about the Koch brothers, Sheldon
Adelson and other incredibly wealthy individuals spending billions of
dollars to elect candidates who will make the rich richer and everyone
else poorer... This is not democracy. This is
oligarchy... [W]e know what American
democracy is supposed to be about. It is one person, one vote--with
every citizen having an equal say--and no voter suppression. And that’s
the kind of American political system we have to fight for and will
fight for in this campaign."

- 88% say big companies have too much power and influence in the nation's capitol, including 93% of independents and 84% of Republicans; 87% agree that PACs have too much power and influence, including 94% of independents and 89% of Republicans; 85% think banks and other financial institutions have too much power and influence, including 89% of independents and 86% of Republicans (Jun. 2011)http://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2011/06/01/NY11681

"[W]e must be deadly serious about campaign finance reform and the need for
a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.... I will not nominate any justice to the
Supreme Court who has not made it clear that he or she will move to
overturn that disastrous decision which is undermining our democracy.
Long term, we need to go further and establish public funding of
elections."

-
50% support for banning all private contributions and establishing a
system of public funding for political campaigns, including 48% of
independents and 41% of Republicans. A whopping 79% said they would vote for a law that would put a limit on the amount of money congressional candidates could raise and spend for their political campaigns; this included 78% of independents and 78% of Republicans (Jun. 2013).http://www.gallup.com/poll/163208/half-support-publicly-financed-federal-campaigns.aspx

- 61% are opposed to the Citizens United ruling, 51% "strongly"; total
includes 62% of independents and 58% of Republicans; 55% of voters favor
a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United ruling,
including 50% of independents and 54% of Republicans (Aug. 2014).https://www.citizen.org/documents/Memo.CitizensUnited.frev.pdf

-
54% reject the notion that money given to political candidates is "a
form of free speech"; 75% agreed that outside groups who spend money on
campaigns should be required to publicly disclose their contributors;
78% said spending on political ads by outside groups "should be limited
by law"; 77% favored "limiting the amount of money individuals can
contribute to political campaigns" over unlimited contributions (Jun.
2015).http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/01/us/politics/document-poll-may-28-31.html

"At a time when our roads, bridges, water systems, rail and airports are
decaying, the most effective way to rapidly create meaningful jobs is to
rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. That’s why I’ve introduced
legislation which would invest $1 trillion over 5 years to modernize our
country’s physical infrastructure."

-
45% said the government should spend more on infrastructure, 31% said
it should spend the same and 15% wanted to spend less; asked how
important it was for the government to fund infrastructure projects, 79%
chose "one of the most important issues" (8%), very important (37%) or
somewhat important (34%) (Jul. 2014)https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/07/17/poll-results-infrastructure/

[Infrastructure was one of the issues on which there simply isn't a great deal of good polling. When Philip Bump considered the matter of infrastructure in his Washington Post piece, he cited a Feb. 2011 poll by Fox News which had concluded that, as he described it, "a large majority oppose spending on infrastructure ... if their taxes go up." But that poll has several series problems, both in itself and in the use Bump made of it. The full poll question was, "President Obama’s new federal budget proposal includes increases in government spending on infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, and on domestic programs like helping pay for community college as well as a pay raise for federal workers. Would you support this proposal if it were funded by an increase in taxes for people like you?" Problem 1: It invokes Obama. Any competent pollster is well-aware that's potentially very prejudicial, as it's blatantly inviting an emotional partisan response, rather than a thoughtful, substantive one. People tend to become very weary of a president in his second term in general. It all rubs off. Problem 2: Though Bump used this question to make the case that people disagree with infrastructure spending, it doesn't just cover that issue; it covers spending on two other big items, all totally different. If a respondent doesn't like any one of the three, this can result in a negative response to all (a dynamic that also works in the reverse). The question doesn't allow people to approve or disapprove of each individually. Problem 3: The big one is that wording telling people their taxes are going to go up is ridiculously prejudicial, an utter violation of competent pollcraft. It tends to result in low marks for any issue on which respondents don't have very strong feelings. This is the cartoon version of polling and useless in this evaluation.]

"I will also continue to oppose our current trade policies. For decades,
presidents from both parties have supported trade agreements which have
cost us millions of decent paying jobs as corporate America shuts down
plants here and moves to low-wage countries. As president, my trade
policies will break that cycle of agreements which enrich at the expense
of the working people of this country."

- 34%, a plurality, says free trade agreements slow the economy vs. 31% who assert it makes the economy grow and 25% who say it makes no difference; 46%, another plurality, say free trade agreements lower wages vs. 11% who say they make wages higher and 33% who say it doesn't make any difference; 46%, another plurality, say such agreements lead to job losses, as opposed to 17% who think they create jobs and 28% who don't think they make any difference. At the same time, 58% say free trade agreements are, in general, "a good thing for the United States" vs. 33% who say they're a bad thing (May 2015)http://www.people-press.org/2015/05/27/free-trade-agreements-seen-as-good-for-u-s-but-concerns-persist/

[Confused yet? Sanders is opposed to big "free trade" agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which really has very little to do with trade anyway). There's very little polling on those agreements and polluting the results of the existing polling is the fact that there's very little public knowledge of them, the fact that Americans have a positive view of trade in the abstract and the fact that the only thing most ever hear of such deals is from advocates of them promising rainbows and unicorns. The polls above all occur in a relatively short span of time but yield results that are all over the board. In his Mother Jones piece, Josh Harkinson noted that "sixty-two percent of voters oppose fast-track authority for the TPP trade deal" but quoted an absolutely hopeless 2014 Pew poll which "put support for the TPP at 55%." But that Pew poll made no effort to learn if respondents actually even knew anything about the TPP, something most wouldn't because the deal had been negotiated in secret and, as covered by this blog, had been subject to one of the most remarkable news blackouts of any issue of comparable importance. Pew's results were derived from Americans' positive opinion of trade in general. The CBS News/New York Times poll cited above documents the profound lack of knowledge of the TPP. In his Washington Post piece, Philip Bump cited that poll and gave the win to Sanders. That's probably justifiable in a short, not-very-detailed piece--most Americans aren't going to back something they think hurts the country--but these nuances we've described here deserve to be at least aired.]

"Let us be honest and acknowledge that millions of Americans are now
working for totally inadequate wages. The current federal minimum wage
of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and must be raised."

"There should be no question that new parents should be allowed to stay
home with their newborn children. Sick workers should have the ability
to stay home when they are unwell. Moreover, employers must provide
their employees a reasonable amount of vacation time, so people can come
together to relax and recharge."http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-workers-rights/

"It is time to break up the largest financial institutions in the country.
Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling
trillions in risky financial instruments while expecting the public to
bail it out. If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist."

[In his piece in the Washington Post, Philip Bump asserts "there's not good, recent polling data on this rather esoteric question." We don't exactly understand how this rather concrete policy proposal is an "esoteric question" but Bump is certainly correct about there being a sparsity of polling on it--this is the sort of subject that, for the most part, the corporate press simply doesn't touch and that includes commissioning polls on it. One group that isn't shy about asking such questions is the liberal Progressive Change Institute, which conducted the second poll we've cited. If that source seems a bit too suspect, the other poll, though a couple years older, was conducted by the conservative Rasmussen Reports, a pollster notorious for generating absurdly skewed polls via absurdly skewed questions and methodology, "polls" that are of little real use except as right-wing propaganda. Both reach similar conclusions. Here, that's the best we've got.]

"[W]e need a tax on carbon to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuel."

-
51% agree "it is the responsibility of the federal government to make
sure all Americans have healthcare coverage," an imprecise but not
entirely useless question--it comes close enough to Sanders' notion of
guaranteeing healthcare. The same poll asked, much less helpfully,
"Which of the following approaches for providing healthcare in the
United States would you prefer, a government-run healthcare system or a
system based mostly on private health insurance?" But, of course,
there's no advocacy anywhere in the U.S. for a full-blown British-style
"government-run healthcare system"--the question is stupid and pointless
and, as the pros at Gallup are well-aware, grossly prejudicial. Still,
even with wording that lopsided, 44% still chose the "government-run healthcare system." (Nov. 2015)http://www.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx

[The 2014 Rasmussen poll is obviously an outlier here; Rasmussen has a long history of manipulating methodology and often even the wording of polls in order to generate conservative-friendly responses. This particular one, which still showed a solid 37% support for single payer, has multiple problems and it probably would have been best to leave it out but it's out there, so it's here.]

"Bernie supports the medical use of marijuana and the rights of
states to determine its legality... Bernie has said he would vote yes as
a resident of a state considering legalization [of marijuana]. For
federal legalization, he has said that he supports ending the federal
prohibition on marijuana, allowing states to opt for legalization if
they so choose."http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-drug-policy/

- 49% favor legalization of marijuana "for
recreational use," unfortunate wording that seems to have been
introduced merely to queer the results but still draws plurality
supporting, including that of 27% of Republicans. In the same poll, 81%
favor legalization for medical use, including 69% of Republicans (Feb.
2015)http://www.theharrispoll.com/politics/Americans-Ready-for-Legal-Marijuana.html

- With one exception that fell within the margin of error, Gallup has
found this to be the majority view since its Oct. 2011 poll on the subject:http://www.gallup.com/poll/1657/illegal-drugs.aspx
[The polling on the larger matter of marijuana legalization is, strictly speaking, outside the proper scope of this survey but the medical marijuana polling--the item we were chasing--is tied up with it, so we just figured "What the hell?" Threw it in too.]

"Instead of cutting Social Security, we’re going to expand Social Security benefits."

"It is insane and counter-productive to the best interests of our
country, that hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford
to go to college, and that millions of others leave school with a
mountain of debt that burdens them for decades. That must end. That is
why, as president, I will fight to make tuition in public colleges and
universities free, as well as substantially lower interest rates on
student loans."

-
63% of likely voters support offering students two
tuition-free years of community college, including 53% of independents
and 47% of Republicans. The same poll showed even bigger support--71%--for providing "federal financial assistance to states to make public colleges and universities more affordable," but tacked on wording about this being done "so that all students have access to debt-free college education in America," which can queer the results. Support for this included 61% of independents and 56% of Republicans. Still another crack at it in the same poll showed that 62% favored providing "financial incentives to state colleges and universities, but also included language that said this was being done "to ensure all students have access to debt-free college education in America." That total included 51% of independents and 46% of Republicans (Jan. 2015).https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.boldprogressives.org/images/Big_Ideas-Polling_PDF-1.pdf

- 68% supported President Obama's plan to "offer two years of community college free for students who maintain a C+ average and are making progress toward a degree"; support included 64% of independents and 42% of Republicans and that's with the invocation of "President Obama" in the question (Jan. 2015)https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/01/13/free-community-college/

"We must be vigorous in combating terrorism and defeating ISIS, but we
should not have to bear that burden alone. We must be part of an
international coalition, led by Muslim nations, that can not only defeat
ISIS but begin the process of creating conditions for a lasting peace."

In his Mother Jones piece, Josh Harkinson tested the question of Sanders being a "socialist." He cited a Dec. 2011 Pew poll wherein 60% of respondents had a negative reaction to the word "socialism" and ruled against Sanders. There are other polls one could cite on this matter. In June 2015, for example, 50% of respondents told Gallup they wouldn't vote for a generic "socialist" vs. 47% who said they would. But numbers like that aren't really instructive as to Sanders' prospects. "Socialism" in the abstract has a negative connotation to many because Americans have been conditioned to think of it as brutal Bolshevism. Sanders is a flesh-and-blood candidate though, not an abstraction, and he's a social democrat, a hybrid of socialism and liberalism that is mostly liberalism, not some would-be Stalin figure. He refutes the caricature simply by going about his business as he has for decades. Our work here has demonstrated that not only do his politics fail to put him outside the broad mainstream, he probably more closely resembles that mainstream than any other candidate in the current presidential race and he's certainly much more representative of the political center than what the corporate press chooses to characterize as the political center.

--Mitch Clark and j.

---

[1] Doing that isn't, as so many seem to think, some sort of trick. It is a
fact that, in the polling
world, there are unscrupulous clowns who use ridiculously stacked
questions for the sole purpose of ferreting out a predetermined result.
Rasmussen is notorious
for this sort of nonsense. But a poll produces a two-dimensional image
of a three-dimensional world. Polling that hits the same issue from
multiple angles can produce a more complete portrait and as long as its
methodology is otherwise sound, even these bad polls can usually
contribute to this.

[2] And, of course, older data can, when paired with the newer, be useful in illustrating a longer-term tend in opinion.

[3] Ours won't be perfect either but we think we've generated a substantial upgrade over those previous efforts.

[4] Sanders does hold other views that may not poll as well--his proposed agenda is rather vast--and we contemplated testing and including some of the others here but ultimately rejected the notion. This was a fairly substantial project as is and "mission creep" loomed over taking it very far beyond the parameters of the checkable items in Sanders' announcement speech. The Sanders material we used to supplement the speech was, with only one exception (general marijuana decriminalization), intended to provide more details about proposals mentioned in the speech.